


knowledge or death (the north star remix)

by ailurea



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Reality, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 15:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19135186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailurea/pseuds/ailurea
Summary: Shiro’s mission, when he receives it, sounds simple: eliminate a Galra who’s building a superweapon just a hop away from Earth.Carrying it out is anything but.





	knowledge or death (the north star remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Under the Aurora of Kraydah](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17805812) by [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium). 



> written for the [sheith remix challenge](https://twitter.com/sheithremix).  
> [lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium) has written so many lovely works, but this one caught my eye immediately! 
> 
> thank you to [robin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream) for holding my hand and helping me get through this, and to [faia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream) for betaing! ♥

The mission brief is short enough that Shiro has it memorized.

_Location: Planet B6 in Delta 5_

_Details: Traces of a Galra fighter’s energy signature detected. Nuclear energy detected. Threat level priority due to proximity to Earth. Deadly force permitted._

It’s not the first time Shiro’s been told to shoot to kill. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s carried out the order, either. He can’t remember when he became so numb to it.

Then again, he can’t remember much at all these days.

The sensors on his ship start blaring the moment he enters the planet’s atmosphere—the power to his engine is cutting out intermittently, enough that he’s losing altitude, and fast. He switches over to just using the auxiliary, but the same thing happens.

He’d done the pre-flight inspections on his ship personally, and the odds of a freak hardware accident are astronomically low. The only way there can be a problem is if someone on the planet caused it.

His target must have been more prepared than the Admiralty assumed.

He can pilot his way through a lot of things, but a complete engine failure is beyond even his ability. His stomach hurtles into his throat as his engine gives up entirely and the ship begins to plummet, but it’s no use—a crash is inevitable at this stage. He reaches for the ejection lever on the bottom of his seat and waits—

Waits—

Waits—

The ground speeds towards him at an alarming rate.

He pulls the lever.

* * *

Shiro wakes up.

As the memories rush back, he’s surprised that he managed to wake up. He cracks open his eyes, expecting to see dirt and leaves. To feel pain and smell the stench of blood, and out of the corner of his eye, the flash of a weapon in a stadium of metal—

His head throbs.

First step. Take stock of his surroundings.

He lays still and takes in what he can without moving his head. His surroundings are all stone, with light coming from his left. A cave, he thinks. He’s lying on some kind of makeshift mattress. It’s cushioned but firm, and also a little lumpy. Either this planet is far less developed than Earth, or he’s in the company of someone living outside of civilization.

Someone like a Galra in hiding.

He chances turning his head to take in more of his environment. It’s not a very large cave; like a Garrison dorm room with rounded edges, carved into a stone wall. Closer to the opening is a fire, with a bundle of furs and someone sitting on it, turning over something small and metal in their hands. It looks like dog tags.

Shiro’s hand flies up to his throat, searching for a chain that isn’t there.

His dog tags.

Shiro pushes himself up on his elbows, but he falls, right side screaming in pain. He only has one elbow, he realizes. His other arm—the Galra prosthetic that he only barely remembers receiving and that the Garrison was too afraid of to remove—is gone.

He doesn’t know if he feels frightened or relieved.

The cave’s other occupant is by his side now, with what looks like a bowl in his hand. Even in the light of the fireplace, the purple tint to his face and the point of his ears is apparent.

The man is Galra.

“What did you do to me?” Shiro says in a rasp. There are probably better things to say in the name of self-preservation, but trapped at the mercy of this Galra without a ship, without a weapon, without an arm—he doesn’t really have much self left to preserve. Even if he wanted to back away, to defend himself, there’s no use in trying—everything hurts, and there’s nowhere to go.

The Galra sits down beside the pallet and sets the bowl on the ground, within arm’s distance of Shiro. There’s some kind of gruel in it, and a spoon. Shiro looks at it and feels too hungry to eat.

The Galra is quiet for so long that Shiro wonders if the Altean translation magic put on him has worn off. Then the Galra’s ears twitch and he says, in a low and rough voice, “Your arm was damaged in the crash. It was hurting you. All I did was take it off.”

He says it like it’s so easy. Then again, maybe it is for a Galra.

Shiro clenches his hands—hand—into a fist. “Why would you help me after taking me down?”

The Galra’s brows crease. His mouth opens and closes several times before he finally says, “You think I did that?”

“Who else would have?”

The Galra scoffs. “Okay. Yeah. Me and what technology, exactly?”

It’s true that their current cave dwelling isn’t exactly a showcase of cutting edge technology. Possibly the most advanced thing here is the fire.

“For the record,” the Galra says in the silence of Shiro’s refusal to answer, “the planet wrecked my ship, too. You’re not the only one stranded here.”

“Why should I believe that?”

“No, you’re right,” the Galra says. “I definitely pulled you from the wreckage and fixed you up so I could attack you while you were awake. That’s a lot easier than finishing you off while you were already unconscious. Why do you keep thinking I’m raring to kill you, anyway?”

Shiro’s silent for a moment too long.

“Ah.” The Galra folds his arms and his ears actually seem to droop a bit. “I get it.”

Shiro refuses to feel ashamed. They’re in the middle of a war, and he still doesn’t know if he should believe anything that comes out of the Galra’s mouth. Stuck on the planet the Galra may be, but he has an agenda.

Everyone does.

The Galra sighs. “Let me—”

The Galra leans toward him, and Shiro tries to ignore the pain ripping through his body as he flinches away. “Hey!”

The Galra leans back again, hands raised. “Let me help you sit up so you can eat,” he says. “Figure you’d like that better than me trying to feed you.”

Shiro would prefer not to be helped by the Galra in any form, but he’s not so prideful that he’d starve himself. He lets the Galra put an arm around him, supporting him into a sitting position against the cave wall before setting the gruel in his lap. It’s not terrible, Shiro admits after a few tentative bites to make sure his stomach won’t riot. Not much worse than dehydrated ramen, at least.

“How long has it been?” Shiro says between bites.

“Since you crashed?” the Galra says. He’s sitting back again, knees up and arms crossed over them. It’s a very human-like position. “Almost a movement. You were in and out.”

“And how long have you been here?”

“Oh, so you believe me now,” the Galra mutters, then sighs and says, “About a phoeb. Maybe a little more. My ship crashed, just like yours. The planet’s atmosphere’s got something against dilithium, I think .”

“Dilithium,” Shiro repeats, setting the spoon down. “So your ship didn’t have a nuclear core?”

“They sent you to kill me for that?” the Galra says, and Shiro’s taken aback by how blase the Galra is about it, especially because it’s becoming apparent that he must be fairly young.

He’s smaller than any other Galra Shiro’s seen—smaller than Shiro, even, and nothing like Sendak or Zarkon or even Lotor—and something about the way he carries himself belies youth. Early twenties, he thinks, if he were to put a human age on it. Maybe younger.

“How old are you?” Shiro says.

The Galra stares at him blankly. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

“You’re too young to be involved in this.”

“If you think war asks people’s ages before fucking up their lives, then I’ve got some bad news for you,” the Galra says.

“I know,” Shiro says. He’s mentored students this young at the Garrison—and it hasn’t been that long since he’s been this young at the Garrison. He can’t remember most of it, but he still can’t imagine being slammed into a war at that age. Can’t imagine being lost and alone and scared on an unknown planet with an unknown enemy. “It shouldn’t have to be this way.”

“Yeah, well.” The Galra fidgets with his hands. “Shouldn’t isn’t the same as isn’t.”

“I know,” Shiro says again, more softly this time. The Galra looks away, and Shiro starts eating again.

“About the nuclear core,” the Galra says after a long moment. “That was already here. It’s wreckage from another Galra ship, but I didn’t see anyone. It was ready to blow when I got here, and I’ve been trying to keep it stabilized as best I can, but it won’t last long. The Kraydians don’t have the technology to harvest it for power, and nothing on my ship is built for it, either.”

Something on Shiro’s ship is built for it. In fact, he specifically brought it along to deal with it. But it doesn’t seem like the Galra found it, or recognized it as useful enough to salvage. Shiro decides to deal with it after he’s recovered enough to stand a fighting chance if the Galra decides to recharge his ship with the power and leave Shiro behind.

“What was that you called them?” Shiro says. “Kraydians?”

“Yeah,” the Galra says. “They’re kind of legendary, off this planet.” He points towards one of the walls of the cave.

Shiro follows his finger and sees a painting there, just visible in the flickering of firelight. It’s of a head, with three circles for eyes arranged in a triangle.

“Kraydian eyes,” the Galra says, and his voice is distant and dreamlike. “When they see through the bottom two eyes, they walk this realm. When they see through only the top middle, they walk in the realm of dreams.”

“Can they see through all three?”

“They can,” the Galra says, “when they’ve obtained knowledge.” He shrugs, and his voice snaps back to normal, grounded and rough. “Or that’s what one of my teachers tells me, anyway. We have this saying, _knowledge or death_. You can’t live unless you understand the world you’re living in.”

“Knowledge or death,” Shiro repeats, weighing the words on his tongue. “Not _victory or death_?”

“Not all Galra serve Zarkon.”

“Are you saying you don’t?”

“Smart man,” the Galra says.

“Who do you work for, then?” Shiro says.

“Does it matter?”

“What?” Of course it matters.

“Right now, it’s just you and me,” the Galra says, pointing between them. “Neither of us have any means of communication, and I’ve been on this planet for a lot longer than you have. I’m your best chance of surviving. Why does it matter who I work for, if I even work for anyone?”

Shiro’s mouth and brain struggle to come up with a response. “I guess it doesn’t,” he says finally.

The truth is, no matter how much he would rather not be, he’s helpless right now. He’s sure he could survive on his own, if he walked away from that crash better, but bedridden as he is, he’s at the mercy of this Galra.

The Galra studies him, then turns away, toward the fire. “The world’s a lot more complicated than who you take orders from.”

Shiro is processing that when there’s a noise from outside the cave.

It starts as a kind of melodic thrumming, then more sounds join it—overtones, undertones—creating a discordant song that’s somehow both eerie and soothing at once.

It sends shivers down Shiro’s spine. “What is that?”

“Their nightly ritual.” The Galra tilts his head at Shiro. “Wanna see it?”

Shiro sets the bowl aside and heaves his legs over the mattress. He tries to stand on his own, but he only makes it halfway before the pain from supporting his own bodyweight starts to feel unbearable.

The Galra watches him, then turns around, presenting his back to Shiro in what looks like a universal sign for a piggyback ride. Shiro has a moment where his soul is observing his body in disbelief—is he really about to accept a piggyback ride from a Galra stranger who he had been ordered to capture and kill if necessary?

But like the Galra said, it would have been easier to kill Shiro while he was already unconscious than to lure him into a piggyback ride only to throw him off a cliff. And Shiro’s curiosity about life beyond Earth is what’s driven him so far into the stars in the first place. He won’t turn down an opportunity to see the Kraydians.

He loops his arm around the Galra’s neck and has a brief moment of panic that he’s misunderstood the signal and a piggyback ride was not actually on the agenda.

But the Galra hooks his arms under Shiro’s thighs and stands. Shiro is lifted effortlessly, despite the Galra’s smaller size, and he’s impressed despite himself—Galra strength really is no joke.

The man carries him at a normal walking pace outside the cave and to the edge of a cliff, where there’s a line of small, definitely alien creatures marching in the snow. They’re not humanoid, like the Galra—they look kind of like trout, scales and all, if trout were approximately four feet tall and had legs. They’re all singing as they walk, and they’re each holding a small orb glowing with swirling colors.

In the sky above them is a rainbow aurora.

“They’re singing for their winter blessings,” the Galra says. “They believe the gods travel through the Rainbow Sea-Sky above, and they’re giving thanks for their lives, and making wishes for the future.”

“What kind of wishes?”

The Galra hums. “Prayers, for the sick and dying. To get better, or to pass on peacefully, depending. Wishing for happiness for their families, or happiness for themselves. For love. For new clothes. They’re simple people, on a simple planet, but it’s the simplicity that lets them live in peace. They don’t have anything that would get Zarkon’s attention.”

Shiro considers that. “What about their knowledge?”

The Galra is silent for a moment. Then he says, “That kind of knowledge wouldn’t interest Zarkon, either.”

* * *

The Galra’s name is Kithra.

Shiro learns this after they get back to the cave and he sees the glint of metal in the Galra’s pocket. He nods toward it. “I saw you holding that earlier. Is it mine?”

The Galra hesitates for a moment, but he pulls the chain out and hands it over. Shiro runs his fingers over the flattened metal. It’s a little more dinged up, but _TAKASHI SHIROGANE_ is emblazoned on it, plain as day, along with his Garrison ID. He puts it back around his neck. There aren’t many people left who would care if something happened to him, but he’s reassured by the weight of the tags all the same.

“It’s Shiro,” he says.

The Galra blinks at him.

“My name,” Shiro clarifies. “The tags say Takashi, but I go by Shiro.” Then he remembers that this is an alien he’s speaking to. “Uh. Can you even read Earth Common? I just assumed, since you could speak—“

“I can read it,” the Galra says. Shiro needs to figure out how alien translation technology works. “Call me Kithra.”

At first, Kithra refuses to take Shiro to his crash site, at least not until Shiro can walk on his own, but Shiro manages to convince him by telling him that if he doesn’t report in, the Coalition may send in more ships. It isn’t a lie, and honestly, requesting aid might be Shiro’s best move in this situation, but no one coming in as backup would think twice before taking Kithra down.

Shiro doesn’t know Kithra, not really—but he knows he can’t let that happen.

When Kithra takes him to the fighter, Shiro’s relieved to find that the damage isn’t nearly as bad as he feared. The engine is shot, and one of the wings seems to have clipped a cliff side, but it seems like the treeline cushioned the fall. The ship should be able to survive after some basic repairs. He wouldn’t be winning any space battles, but he could make it home.

The comms station, too, is thankfully intact. He can’t power up the whole ship, so he drags a backup battery pack into the darkened cockpit and wires it into the comm station so he can send a message out on an encrypted Coalition frequency.

He sends his identifying information, location, and says, “The atmosphere of the planet will cause any entering ships to crash. Do not send backup. I will be fixing my engine over the next movement, and I’ll complete the mission and regroup within a phoeb. Shirogane out.”

When he limps his way out of his ship, he finds Kithra a good distance away, looking out into the forest. He’s far enough that he doesn’t even notice that Shiro’s done; Shiro has to call out his name before he turns around and walks back over.

If he didn’t think Kithra was young before, this would have given it away immediately—he’s too trusting.

“I could have called for backup,” Shiro says as Kithra steps up beside him. It’s a warning.

Kithra hums, and doesn’t seem to heed it. He pulls Shiro’s arm over his shoulder with a gentle grip and takes half of Shiro’s weight as they make the slow journey back to the cave. “Did you?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t see what the problem is,” Kithra says.

Shiro wishes the world could be that simple.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t argue.

* * *

Recovery doesn’t take long under Kithra’s watchful eye.

Kithra coats himself in an armor of brusqueness, but his eyes are kind, and his touch is gentle. Shiro always catches himself watching for a moment longer than he should. Kithra doesn’t even have to be doing anything special—Shiro will be mesmerized by the simple way he braids his hair in the morning, brow lightly furrowed and his plush lower lip between his teeth.

Shiro doesn’t trust strangers, almost as much as he doesn’t trust the people who claim to be close to him when he can’t remember them at all. But Kithra is easy to be around. His presence has been Shiro’s candle in the darkness—but in the right conditions, the smallest of flames can become a wildfire.

Shiro’s beginning to feel its heat, and it feels so good—feels so much like actually feeling something real—that he almost wants it to consume him.

Almost.

He has no delusions about their relationship. He’s sure their tentative peace won’t last outside the atmosphere of this planet. He’s sure they won’t last.

So he stays quiet, and he lets himself burn.

* * *

During the day, Kithra throws on a black cloak with a hood and goes into town to help the Kraydian with odd jobs.

“Might as well do something useful with my time,” he says when Shiro asks about it. “And it’s not like they don’t give me anything in exchange.”

It’s true. Kithra brings back better food, and fruit—the gruel from the first day was just a result of staying by Shiro’s bedside for the quintants it took for him to wake up. He also brings back picture books, since Shiro can’t read Kraydian, and small puzzles and toys.

Shiro feels useless when he’s left to his devices, but Kithra isn’t gone for long, and after making food and redressing Shiro’s wounds, he settles down by Shiro and they talk into the night. He doesn’t talk about his personal life much, but that means he doesn’t ask questions of Shiro’s, either.

Shiro’s grateful for it.

Kithra, he quickly learns, is thoughtful and kind, and forced to throw up defenses and grow up much more quickly than anyone ever should. He regrets that Kithra’s somehow gotten involved in this war. That this was the way they had to meet.

Maybe in another reality.

Maybe in another lifetime.

At night, he looks at the aurora and wishes for Kithra to survive in this one.

Once Shiro is feeling well enough to walk on his own, they start making daily trips out to Shiro’s fighter to begin repairs. Kithra claims his own ship is beyond hope, but he makes trips out by himself to salvage parts from it to help repair Shiro’s.

Kithra has a decent knowledge of engineering, or at least enough to poke his way around an Earth ship. Shiro had a legitimate concern that Kithra would accidentally electrocute himself. In response, Kithra rigged the fighter door to only open partially so that Shiro would have to duck on the way in.

Shiro let him help after that.

With Kithra’s assistance, the repairs are done much quicker than Shiro anticipated. They patch up the wing and Shiro thinks they get the engine back in working order, but it’s hard to tell without power.

Which brings them to the core.

It’s a bit of a journey from the cave to the core—several vargas of walking, at least—and Shiro understands why Kithra didn’t try to bring him out there before he fully recovered. Even now, his legs are sore.

The core itself is embedded in debris in a shady grove. And it certainly looks Galra in design—pitch black, with an unsettling violet glow.

“According to the logs, the ship lost power and drifted a few systems before crash landing here,” Kithra says. “Luckily the core stayed intact, but like I said, it’s been destabilizing. I’ve tried to deactivate it, but I couldn’t do much. I wasn’t planning on coming here, or I would’ve been better prepared.”

“How’d you end up here, anyway?” Shiro says. “Doesn’t seem like this system is really on the Galra’s radar.”

Kithra looks away. “You weren’t the only one trying to track someone down.”

There’s a story there, but Shiro’s certain Kithra isn’t ready to let him hear it. He turns away and starts to set up his device.

“How does it work?” Kithra says.

“Honestly?” Shiro flips open the instruction manual Pidge wrote out for him. “No idea. The engineers build it, and I use it.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“It would be,” Shiro says, “if I didn’t trust the engineers behind it.”

Shiro has no delusions about his place in the universe. Right now, he’s nothing more than a pawn on someone else’s board. If he hadn’t seen Sam putting the device together himself, he wouldn’t risk using it with Kithra beside him.

“Do you trust the commanders behind your missions?” Kithra says.

It’s a loaded question if Shiro’s ever heard one, but the curiosity behind it is genuine. It makes him think for a moment before answering. “I trust that they think they’re doing the right thing,” he says finally.

“And if you disagree with them?”

“Then I’ll figure it out,” Shiro says. He doesn’t say that the fact Kithra’s still breathing is in itself a representation of Shiro’s disobedience. He’s sure Kithra already knows.

He regards Kithra for a moment—his open stance, his furrowed brow. He thinks he’s starting to get an idea of who the man before him is. “Is that why you’re out here? You disagreed with the Empire?”

“Something like that,” Kithra says. His ears flick like they’re shaking off dust. He kneels down and flattens the instruction booklet against the rocky ground. “C’mon. The faster we deal with this, the better.”

It’s almost anti-climactic, how quickly it all ends—not that Shiro was hoping for an explosive finish.

Between the two of them, it’s quick work to set up the device and use it to drain the core into a set of crystals that could be used as a power source for Shiro’s ship. It takes a few vargas, and the sky bleeds from purple to rainbow to night as they wait, but eventually the eerie violet light of the core flickers and dies entirely.

Kithra sighs, and somehow it sounds louder in the darkness. “Congratulations,” he says, holding a crystal to his face. The glow makes him look even more alien, and even more beautiful. “You saved the planet.”

 _No_ , Shiro thinks. _You saved me._

* * *

In the morning, they take the crystals back to Shiro’s fighter. There’s little use in celebrating unless they can be sure it actually works. He swaps out the failed dilithium core with the crystals and reconnects the circuitry before climbing into the cockpit. Kithra is sitting in the copilot’s seat, looking over the control panel.

Shiro slides into the pilot’s seat. “Here goes nothing,” he says, drawing power to all the main systems. He grins as the lights turn on and the engine thrums to life. “Well, I don’t know if it’ll fly, but this is definitely a good start.”

“I’m sure it’ll fly,” Kithra says with a small smile.

Shiro laughs. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

It’s the first time he’s seen the cockpit bathed in light since he’d crashed, and when Shiro turns to look at Kithra, a glimmer of metal catches his eye from the floor by Kithra’s feet. He leans down and picks it up.

“Shiro, don’t.” There’s panic in Kithra’s eyes and voice as he tries to take it from Shiro’s grip, but it’s too late—Shiro’s already seen it.

On a broken chain are dog tags, engraved with the name _TAKASHI SHIROGANE_.

He lets Kithra have the tags and clutches at his chest instead. The dog tags are still there around his neck, the ones he had taken from Kithra on his first day on the planet. He pulls them out— _TAKASHI SHIROGANE_.

He stares at Kithra.

There’s someone else there, he thinks, when he blinks. Someone smaller and pinker, with the same eyes and the same face. Someone human, wearing the orange and white of the Galaxy Garrison. Kithra’s mouth is moving, but Shiro can’t hear anything over the blood and voices pounding in his head.

 _I’ll see you when I get back_ , he hears himself say.

 _Go_ , someone else says, voice tremulous. He’s heard the voice a million times. Forgotten it, and heard it a million times more. _Be great._

His head throbs.

The darkness takes him.

* * *

“You took down a Galra fighter by yourself, and then survived for months alone on an alien planet,” Commander Iverson says from his seat in the ATLAS conference room. “You.”

“Keith has always been a gifted pilot,” Shiro reminds him, hand on Keith’s shoulder to keep him from snapping back.

Iverson glares at him with his single eye. “And what’s with that? I thought you lost your memories from before the Kerberos incident.”

“I’m getting it back, sir,” Shiro says. “Bits and pieces.”

The truth is that he has it all. But they don’t need to know that, not yet.

For now, he’s perfectly content to remain in the shell of a pawn.

“With all due respect,” he says, “Keith hasn’t done anything to warrant distrust from the Garrison. If anything, we should be thanking him for keeping the core stable until I got there. Things could have ended a lot worse for us.”

Iverson grunts and looks to Allura.

Her hands are folded placidly in front of her. “If Shiro vouches for him, I see no reason not to reinstate him. He certainly isn’t the enemy Galra we thought he was.”

Iverson stands. “I guess that’s it, then. Welcome back to the Garrison, Kogane. You’re lucky you’ve got Shirogane in your corner.”

“I know, sir,” Keith says. “Thank you, sir.”

If anything, Iverson seems more unsettled by Keith being polite. He turns to Shiro. “Get him a shower and a new set of uniforms. We’ll talk assignments after.”

“Actually,” Shiro says, looking at Allura. “I think I have an idea.”

“Ah,” she says, looking between them. She smiles slightly. “Let’s discuss this evening, shall we?”

Keith’s quiet as they walk down the hall back to Shiro’s quarters, but his shoulders sag and he lets out a heavy exhale once they’re in the room, leaning against the door once it closes.

“You okay?” Shiro says, stepping closer.

“Yeah,” Keith says. “For now. I’ll have to figure out the best way to pass info along back to the Blades, but. The hardest part is over, I guess.” He looks up, drawing Shiro in with his gaze. “You okay?”

It’s a physical pull, and Shiro steps close enough that he can feel the heat from Keith’s body. “Yeah.” He puts his hand on Keith’s waist, then slides it down and snags the dog tags from his pocket. “Guess I should be taking these back now. I can’t believe you took them with you out there.”

“It was a reminder,” Keith says, “that you were still out there, somewhere. That I couldn’t stop looking.”

Shiro smiles wryly. “So the opposite of what they were supposed to represent, then.”

Keith blinks, processing that, then laughs quietly, his whole face softening in a way that makes Shiro’s heart ache to see again. “Guess so,” he says. “I never was good at listening.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Shiro cups the side of Keith’s face just to feel his skin, and smiles when Keith leans into it. “You listen when it matters.”

“I guess,” Keith says. He lowers his eyes, eyelashes fluttering against his cheekbone, then looks up again. “I listen to you.”

Shiro can remember many, many times that wasn’t the case. “Do you?”

Keith’s eyelids lower, but his gaze remains steady. “Tell me to kiss you.”

Shiro’s breath catches in his throat. He can feel his heart palpitating.

Keith raises his eyebrows, waiting.

“Kiss me,” Shiro whispers.

Keith does.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! ♥  
> i love, appreciate, and reply to all comments, even if it takes me a little while to get to them :)
> 
> please come say hello!  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/ailurea) // [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/ailurea) // [askbox + requests](https://curiouscat.me/ailurea)
> 
> and be sure to check out [lunarium's work](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium)! ♥


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